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North Korea stages anti-US rally in battle with Trump

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea has held a large anti-U.S. rally in its capital city, backing its leader Kim Jong Un as he exchanges insult-laden threats with President Donald Trump.

A huge crowd gathered Saturday in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square, named for the current leader’s grandfather and founder of North Korea. They listened to speeches from senior officials excoriating the United States and its president.

A parade of marchers carried signs with slogans such as “decisive revenge” and “death to the American imperialists.” They shouted phrases such as “total destruction,” according to the Korean Central News Agency, the state news service.

The crowd included workers, officials and students, KCNA said.

The rally capped two days of response to Trump’s combative speech at the United Nations earlier in the week. The U.S. president mocked Kim as a “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission,” and said that the U.S. “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.

North Korea responded on Friday by distributing a rare statement directly from Kim. He called Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard,” and said his country would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”